THE WAY WE EAT; On Blueberry Hill

By NANCY HARMON JENKINS

Published: August 17, 2008

Up on the mountain behind my house, the wild blueberries are ripe and prolific. It's public land, part of the Maine state-park system, so the berries are free for the picking. In a half-hour or so, if I'm lucky, I can fill a tin cup with enough berries for breakfast, mixed into muffins or pancakes or, best of all, on their own with a smidgen of sugar and a dollop of yogurt.

These are Maine wild or low-bush blueberries, a very special breed. Vaccinium angustifolium are tiny and sweet, with a tartly resinous edge missing from the cultivated high-bush berries of other regions. The color is deep blue, sometimes lightly dusted with white -- ''like pieces of the sky,'' our grandmothers told us.

My friends Gwen and Dick Brodis don't see blueberries in the same romantic light. For them, blueberry season means hard work and long hours, but it's a welcome addition to the income of their 800-acre farm. The Brodises live upcountry in the town of Hope, about 10 miles from the coast, where they maintain 180 acres in wild blueberries on land that has been in Gwen's family for uncountable generations. ''I used to think it was six or seven,'' she told me recently, ''but now I think it's a lot more.'' Even if her conservative estimate is true, that means her forebears began farming in Hope around the time of the Revolution.

Most likely it was Native Americans who taught Europeans like Gwen's ancestors to harvest blueberries. Indians, early records say, gathered berries and dried them for winter. They probably cultivated them just as they're cultivated now (or were until recently), burning the fields every other spring to cut back the crop and encourage new growth. Nowadays, if you go Down East to the vast blueberry barrens of Washington County, around the towns of Milbridge, Cherryfield, Addison and Jonesboro, you'll find farmers mechanically pruning the acreage by flailing until each craggy little bush is but an inch and a half high. But the Brodises' land is too uneven and rocky for that, so they still burn many of the fallow fields in April.

Calling these ''wild'' blueberries is actually no more accurate than calling Maine lobster ''wild.'' With both, the product in question emerges from the wild and reproduces in the wild, but the guiding hand of humans coaxes the wild stock to fruition and proliferation. Pruning the bushes, spraying with a pre-emergent herbicide and adding fertilizer are all practices Maine blueberry farmers follow. Every other year the fields are left fallow. (Of the Brodises' 180 acres, only 90 will be harvested this year, the rest in 2009.) Truly organic cultivation is difficult, growers agree, but the applications are generally added only to fallow fields, meaning this year's crop is 12 to 18 months past the application date safe for human consumption if somewhat questionable for the environment.

What makes Maine wild blueberries so special is partly their delicately complex flavor and partly a high antioxidant content one of the highest of all fruits and vegetables, according to a number of peer-reviewed publications. What makes for this complexity, according to Dave Yarborough, a blueberry specialist at the University of Maine in Orono, is the genetic diversity of the wild stock. ''A wild-blueberry barren consists of thousands of genetically diverse plants,'' he explained to me. ''Because of the diversity, they ripen at different times. So you get a certain amount of overripe and underripe fruit along with fruit that's perfectly mature, and this adds to the complexity.''

Most of the wild blueberries harvested in Maine are frozen, although here in the midst of harvest we wouldn't dream of using anything but fresh fruit, preferably warmed by the sun and gathered by hand. I asked Yarborough if the antioxidant content is affected by cooking. ''It is a little,'' he said, ''but that's just a good excuse for two pieces of pie.''

Recipe: North Haven Wild-Blueberry Tart

Some years ago, a Swedish woman named Lotta spent time on the Penobscot Bay island of North Haven. This recipe is adapted from the one she left behind, which has become a tradition among some island families.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Salt

Dash of cinnamon

* cup flour

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon rolled oats

1/4 cup finely chopped blanched almonds

3 1/2 cups fresh wild blueberries (see note)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Grated zest of 1 lemon

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar

Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream (optional).

1. Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and 1/3 cup of the sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, a pinch of salt and the cinnamon. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the flour, rolled oats and almonds. Shape into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Press the chilled dough into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Wrap in plastic and freeze for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Transfer the tart pan directly from the freezer to the oven and bake until the crust is golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and using paper towels to protect your hands, gently press the hot crust, which will have risen a bit, back into the pan. Cool slightly on a wire rack before adding the berry filling.